Image processing apparatus with data storage region management, memory space allocation in accordance with detected compression ratio of data

An image recording apparatus comprising:

• a first image data input section for inputting first image data related to an image;
• a second image data input section for inputting second image data related to an image;
• data compression means for compressing said first and second image data input by said first and second image data input sections according to a compression ratio;
• data storage means having a predetermined data memory space for storing said first and second image data;
• data expansion means for expanding said first and second image data compressed by the data compression means and for outputting said expanded first and second data;
• data storage region management means for managing a plurality of data storage regions in said data storage means for said first image data from said first image data input section and for said second image data from said second image data input section, wherein each one of said plurality of storage regions is allocated a portion of said data memory space;
• compression ratio detection means for detecting the compression ratio of said first and second image data;
• and
• control means for changing the portion of said data memory space allocated for at least one of said plurality of data storage regions in said data storage means for said first image data input by said first image data input section in accordance wtih the compression ratio detected by said compression ratio detection means.

An image recording apparatus adapted to receive image data from at least one external source, and from an image reading section for reading images on documents and generating corresponding image data, comprising

• data compression means for compressing image data generated by said image reading section in accordance with a variable compression ratio;
• a data storage buffer having a predetermined data memory space for temporarily storing image data;
• data storage region management means for managing a plurality of data storage regions in said data storage buffer, wherein each one of said plurality of data storage regions is allocated a portion of said data memory space and wherein each one of said plurality of data storage regions is designated to store image data from one of the image data reading section and the at least one external source of image data;
• compression ratio detection means for detecting the compression ratio of the image data generated by said image reading section and compressed by said data compression means;
• and
• control means for changing the portion of said data memory space allocated for at least one of said plurality of data storage regions in said data storage buffer for the image data generated by said image reading section in accordance with the compression ratio detected by said compression ratio detection means.